Medical errors

QualityTools

This toolkit is designed to facilitate the communication of critical test results from the lab or nurse to the physician. Critical test results are defined as any test result that may result in serious outcomes for patients. Improving communication of critical test results can reduce the rate of adverse events, because the physician has time to intervene.

Medical errors can occur at many points in the health care system, particularly in hospitals. This 2-page fact sheet provides the following 10 tips that hospitals can implement to improve patient safety:

This 200-page resource manual outlines a systems approach to medication management in long-term care. It is designed to provide nursing home staff with a step-by-step guide through the key processes of a comprehensive medication management system and address areas that can lead to the reduction of medication errors. In addition, tools are offered as strategies to reduce the incidence and harm of errors.

Mistake-Proofing the Design of Health Care Processes is a synthesis of practical examples from the real world of health care on the use of process or design features to prevent medical errors or the negative impact of errors. It contains over 150 examples of mistake-proofing that can be applied in health care–and in many cases relatively inexpensively.

In Mistake-Proofing the Design of Health Care Processes, risk managers and chief medical officers will benefit from common-sense...